'A young wedded pair, mother Thekla,' answered the conductor, 'who are
fleeing before the converters. Receive them kindly and take good care
of them. God will reward you for it.'

'It is but our duty,' said the woman. 'Come in, poor creatures.'

'Farewell,' said the conductor to Oswald. 'I intend to return directly;
for my wife and children may not be safely left without a protector
among the reckless soldiery.'

'And, that you have brought me here--' said Oswald, forcing into his
hand a couple of dollars over and above the fee agreed upon....

'I have already forgotten it,' said the conductor, laughing. 'Besides,
when I get into the forest, I intend to load my wagon with wood, which
I shall gaily drag into Friedland early in the morning, and nobody will
think of asking me what freight I took thence. May God protect you!'

He mounted his wagon and drove rapidly away, while Oswald led his
companion into the bar-room. To their great satisfaction it was
tolerably empty. Only in one corner of the room snored three men and
four large hounds on some straw, and at a table near the gray-headed
host, with a goblet before him, sat a large strongly built man in the
dress of a Bohemian peasant. Oswald observed the sabre which the guest
bore, and the large knife in his girdle, with some suspicion; but the
honest lineaments and saddened expression of his brown, haggard face,
again inspired him with confidence. He courteously seated himself at
the table and called for a glass of wine, while Faith was arranging
with the hostess for a supper and accommodations for the night.

'You are in flight on account of your faith, as I hear, my dear sir?'
asked the stranger in a voice of the deepest bass, and at the same time
glancing at him mistrustfully with his wild, black eyes.

'The time and weather would have been badly chosen for a journey of
pleasure,' peevishly answered Dorn.

'You must surely have come from Jauer, or Loewenberg, or Schweidnitz?'
further asked the man; 'for they are very strenuously pushing the
counter-reformation in those places just now. 'You are by far too
curious!' cried Oswald, with displeasure. 'I do not willingly listen to
such questions from strangers.'

'It is the business of my office to ask questions, my young gentleman,'
thundered the stranger; 'for I am a captain of Bohemian provincial
troops, and am stationed here upon the border to guard against the
influx of Silesian heretics.'

While he said th